Interacting Items

-- The report on the Florida Legislature's 50 percent pay increase and increases ranging up to 34 percent for county officials.

-- The report that Social Security recipients will get a 3.1 percent increase in January.

-- The report that in Columbus, Ohio, Wilson Whaley lay down beside his wife of 43 years and took one of her hands in his before pulling the trigger. Whaley, needing $26 for medication for his wife, left a note about ''frustration, welfare cuts and a society that doesn't care.''

With the problem of untold numbers of Whaleys facing utter hopelessness for want of minimum housing, food and medical attention, it is difficult to reconcile our lawmakers gorging themselves, the tax collectors, sheriffs and others with extravagant raises.

Perhaps the Whaleys and similar episodes are foreshadowing a self- imposed ''final solution'' to the ''problem'' of the aged.

After all, subtly induced despair that leads these unfortunates to no choice but self-destruction will leave our fat-salaried public officials free to wash their hands in Pontius Pilate's bowl.